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PM's ASIO visit may have aided breach: Labor

In front of the media, ASIO's chief shows Tony Abbott maps illustrating where Australia's foreign fighters have come from in what Labor says may have been a breach of national security.

Once or twice might be contestable, but a clear pattern has emerged revealing a government too ready to stoke community fear and then parlay its "tough" policy responses for its own aggrandisement.

This harsh judgment is the reasonable conclusion from a series of breaches in the last fortnight. Consider three examples: a leaked briefing paper instructing ministers on how best to use what would have been extraordinary citizenship cancellation powers to politically isolate the ALP; a cynical fundraising campaign by the Victorian Liberal Party using the citizenship and terrorism to solicit political donations; and a media stunt at ASIO headquarters in which potentially sensitive maps showing IS recruitment zones in Melbourne and Sydney were released into the public domain.

Enough has been written about the first example, which ultimately saw the government back down from its unconstitutional position anyway.

Even the government admits that the case against it on the second example is open and shut. That the Victorian Liberal Party's organisational wing was able to use a contemporaneous picture of the PM in his Canberra courtyard undertaking an official duty in front of 10 flags, is bad enough, but the words accompanying the photograph made its cynical motive explicit: "Donate now to support a SAFER Australia," it bellowed, above a quote reading "Terrorists who are dual nationals will have their citizenship stripped".

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The impression was unmistakable - national security is at risk under the other leader. "Labor and the left are playing politics with our national security, weakening our borders and are a soft touch on home-grown terrorists."

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Would-be donors are reminded that Tony Abbott will continue to keep Australia safe, but only with the help of a taxpayer-funded concessional donation to the Liberal Party of up to $1500 - and remember, it is tax time after all.

Abbott's office disowned the campaign but the message is finely calibrated to capitalise on government strategy and the funds will no doubt flow.

Exhibit three is the "picture opportunity" on Wednesday, in which TV cameras were invited to film Abbott being briefed about foreign fighters by the head of ASIO, Duncan Lewis.

The PM's office told Fairfax Media that none of the maps displayed revealed classified information, and claimed further that the pic-op was essentially an ASIO event.

Yet ASIO itself had requested afterwards that vision containing the maps not be broadcast. As Bill Shorten noted, if the information is not of the type available when journalists seek it, then it should not have been so blithely used.

If national security is as imperilled as the government wants voters to understand, a more sober, and decidedly less partisan approach is surely called for

Again, politics before policy. If national security is as imperilled as the government wants voters to understand, a more sober, and decidedly less partisan approach is surely called for.

However, now that the 'election' word is being muttered in the halls of power, such "adult" sobriety might be unrealistic.